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Notice of Proposed Development: 77 Salamanca Place, Hobart (Salamanca Arts Centre)is a site-specific pseudo-development proposal for Salamanca Arts Centre. Emulating the bureaucracy of local government planning regulations, the proposed redevelopment is deliberately absurd, mimicking trends in contemporary museum architecture and applying them in monumental scale to the rather modest Salamanca Arts Centre building. In doing so, the SAC building will be transformed into a cutting edge monument to rival institutions such as the Guggenheim(s), the New Museum (New York), the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, MAXXI (Rome) and MONA.

The art museum is no longer built in the image of a Greek temple. Instead, it strives to be unique in every way, from the toilets to the shiny coloured enamel exterior. However, the features designed to create a unique structure paradoxically tend to be common to most new museum buildings. These features include bizarre angles, curved or polished concrete, confusing layout, large entrance courtyards, water features, unlikely toilets, rust, and floating or unusual staircases. The institution will encourage site-specific artworks that respond to the architecture, with art invading the lift shafts, stairs and toilets. Importantly, the ‘visitor experience’ is enhanced through the provision of a gift shop, bar, restaurant and/or café. The most common of these features have been applied to the new SAC design, with the aim of providing Hobart with (another) ‘unique’ contemporary art museum. The redevelopment retains the building’s existing heritage base, but has three additional levels on top, a site-specific water feature, a night-time lighting display, and an external platform for temporary art projects.

The Lightbox is akin to a museum vitrine or shop display, and the installation takes advantage of its prominent location at street level with 24-hour access. The work will evolve over the exhibition period, culminating in the presentation of a scale model and architectural plans, so visitors are encouraged to view the work multiple times over the course of the exhibition.